


That Knits Up the Raveled Sleeve Of Care

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hoodie fic, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sick Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 01:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16295816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This was written for a prompt that wanted Dean to take care of sick Sam, calling him sweetheart and all kinds of other endearments.





	That Knits Up the Raveled Sleeve Of Care

It wasn't often that Sam got ill, like almost never. But when he did fall sick, like the giants of the stories, he fell hard. 

The actual germs had probably been provided by that snotty nosed girl in the diner the other day, the one too young to know to cover her mouth and nose when she sneezed. When the kid had sneezed all over them and their diner booth, her mom had hustled her along, but had neither apologized nor told the kid about that basic bit of courtesy and hygiene. That alone probably wouldn't have been enough to get Sam. Sam was physically robust, almost disgustingly so. But sometime the next day, they'd been caught out in the rain, one of those drenching, solid, near freezing rains you got in the later fall and the earliest of the spring, sort of halfway to ice and snow but not quite there yet. Sam had gotten soaked to the skin. He'd been wearing a cloth coat and not quite enough layers. Dean had layered up and he was wearing a leather jacket, so he hadn't had it quite as bad. 

That wasn't the worst of it. They'd been on their way back to Rufus' cabin from Baltimore and there was a whole lot of nothing between where they were and where they'd needed to be. Between lack of funds and needing to lay low, they hadn't risked a hotel room, but pulled off to the side of the road somewhere in the ass end of one of the Dakotas. Yeah, Sam had changed to dry clothes. Dean had run the heat in the car as high as he could during their drive. There were blankets in the trunk and extra layers to pile on, but a night in the Impala was never particularly comfortable at the best of times. And this wasn't the Impala, but some strange Oldsmobile they'd appropriated in the Indianapolis suburbs when the Challenger had broken down. It was going to be even more temporary than their cars had been lately, because it was a crappy car. In the almost but not quite winter, a night in the car was miserable. 

Sam had woke complaining of a scratchy throat. When they'd stopped for coffee, Dean had gotten Sam a tea instead, with honey. He surreptitiously stocked up on some NyQuil at the gas and sip, seeing what was coming. Sam would probably refuse medicine until he was really bad, but when he was ready for it, Dean would have it, because he was just that awesome a brother. 

As Dean could have predicted, Sam's illness followed the usual pattern. He was sneezing and sniffling by the afternoon, complaining about how much he ached at about ten at night. They hit the Montana state line not long after that, and they'd be home before long, assuming they could keep driving through. Dean casually brushed a hand along Sam's forehead and the boy was feverish. Not bad, but definitely enough to make him uncomfortable.

"Don't do that," Sam complained. "I'm not eight anymore."

"Then quit whimpering like a little girl who wants her mommy," Dean teased. 

Sam didn't retort, just settled back in his seat, leaning his head back against the head rest. Then he coughed, a deep, chesty, wet sounding cough. Yeah, this was going to be a bad one. 

"There's some NyQuil in the bag from the Gas and Sip," Dean offered. 

Instead of protesting that he didn't need it, Sam reached into the back seat and grabbed the bag. He dug out the bottle of deep green medicine and he looked at it for a while. "Not yet. Don't want to fall asleep yet," he said. "Almost home."

"Yeah, we've only got almost the whole state of Montana to drive through," Dean said. "Why don't you? A couple of nice big swigs and you'll be back at the cabin before you know it."

"You're planning to drive through the night?" Sam asked, then coughed again. Why wouldn't the guy take his nice knock out medicine and just sleep?

"Eight hours straight through to Rufus' cabin, which, while it's not exactly home sweet home, is warm, dry and free. With a fireplace. Would you rather find a motel and hole up there for a while? We could probably swing it, if we had to. I've got some cash."

"No, keep driving," Sam said, and he leaned against the window and tried to sleep without the benefit of the NyQuil. 

After a while, Sam woke, shivering. Dean tried to turn the heat up in the car more, then realized it was already cranked as far as it would go. Dean had actually shed all his layers, other than the henley and the undershirt and he was still on the verge of sweating.

"You know what I really want?" Sam asked, sounding piteous. Dean was expecting a request for tea. Or chicken soup. Or some homeopathically useless remedy from a health store. 

"What's that?"

"My hoodie."

"The Carhartt jacket? Didn't that get ruined last year? Big hole up here?" Dean indicated near the shoulder. "No way to get the blood stains out?"

"No, not that one. The gray one with the fleur-de-lis," Sam said, wearily, then he coughed a little, reedy and raspy this time. 

"The flower de what?" Dean teased. He knew damn well exactly which hoodie Sam meant. He hated to see Sam like this, so weak and peevish. It was worse, in a way, than seeing him screaming in agony, detoxing from demon blood, it made him seem fragile. Sam was better, so it seemed. He was keeping the tattered edges of his soul together somehow, but Dean feared any sign that Sam was weak. The madness could and probably would come back, knowing Winchester luck. The whole being roofied with love potion by Becky fucking Rosen couldn't help matters.

Dean tried to get a rise out of him, reverting back into old, almost childish patterns. "You're such a girl."

"Don't," Sam warned. "Just don't. I just want to sleep, Dean, and I want my damn hoodie. I don't even know where it got to."

Dean knew. When all you had were the clothes you could cart around with you, the car that kept you on the road and the weapons in your hands, you got attached to them. Or at least he did. They meant more than just something to cover your body. They were part of your house, part of the shell you kept around you; they were part of who you were. One day, Sam had sorted out his hoodies and said that they didn't really fit him anymore, they were worn out. They might as well be tossed. Dean knew that it was more about the kind of garment they were than their size or condition. A hoodie was a boy's garment. He'd still been a boy that day Dean had driven away from Stanford with him, but in the short, hard couple of years after than, Sam had grown to manhood. It'd been about him putting away childish things more than anything. Dean had said he'd take care of it and the hoodies had vanished as far as Sam was concerned. 

"It's in our lock-up in Billings," Dean said. "Look, why don't you slug back some NyQuil. I'll stop when we pass through and when you wake in the morning, you'll be at the cabin and you'll have your hoodie."

Sam coughed in agreement. He cracked open the NyQuil, slugged a big dose back without measuring it. He grimaced at the taste and recapped the bottle, setting it down.

"You know the Leviathan probably know about the lockup. What if they're watching?" Sam asked.

"Nah, I paid in cash. Two years up front. Not under one of our usual covers," Dean said. "It's safe as can be. Get some shut eye and we'll be at the cabin before you know it."

Sam didn't drift off right away, but slowly, his cough seemed a little better, his eyes dropped shut and he relaxed against the door, fast asleep in maybe twenty minutes. He shifted once, leaning away from the door and towards Dean, maybe in danger of his head flopping onto Dean's shoulder. The Oldsmobile had one of those big bench seats up front that family cars used to have and Sam drifted closer and closer to Dean, sprawling across two thirds of the bench seat.

Dean drove through the night, thinking about things, about Cas and wondering what happened to angels when they died, if anything, about Sam, about the fragility of existence and how he didn't think they'd make it through this time. They'd pressed their luck too much, done the impossible too many times. Every now and then, he'd grab his flask, take a sip or two. Not really enough to impair him, just a maintenance dose, to keep the shakes away. Dean, he had a problem. He knew he had a problem with the booze. He knew what he should do about it. But their real problems right now just seemed bigger and more important than trying to fix what was broken inside him, especially when that was just bound to be a losing game. The way he was, he was pretty much unfixable and the best he could hope for was functional. Right now, what kept him functional was a low, constant dose of booze. 

Once Sam was fast asleep, Dean took his right hand off the wheel and let his arm rest across Sam's shoulder, reassured by its solidity. Sam was here, fully here, and maybe a little ragged around the edges, but he and his soul were here and that was enough for Dean at the moment. 

He'd never have let himself touch his brother like this, except Sam was drugged to the gills with his huge glug of the big N, little y, big effen Q. It'd take even him hours to sleep that much off. It wasn't a sex thing. He and Sam, that was sort of an on again off again thing, and ever since Sam had come back from the cage, it'd been very much an off again thing, for far too long. It'd always been about needing someone in the dark night and the other being the only one there. Or at least the sex part had been. When Sam had come back, it hadn't seemed right to start up again. Sam, without his soul, had caused his skin to crawl, not exactly something that inspired the sexy times. After he'd gotten Sam back his soul, Dean had been afraid of how fragile he must be. He wanted, he yearned to take Sam back into his arms, make it all something more than just pressure release or a cure for loneliness, but the time had never seemed right. He'd kind of been hoping it might happen during their annual pilgrimage trip to Vegas, and that had been the typical Winchester success story. Leave it to Sam to get dosed with a love potion and married the instant he was left alone. 

Dean didn't stop until they reached Billings at about oh dark thirty. Sam was fast asleep as Dean pulled up in front of their storage unit. Unlike his Dad's unit up in New York, Dean had picked a standard u lock it kind of place, but it was cheap, accessible twenty-four hours and nobody asked any questions when he'd paid that far in advance with cash. Dean just kept things here, not curse boxes, or anything supernatural. Maybe a few extra weapons, but not anything live, except maybe a little ammo. It was just a convenient place to stash stuff that wouldn't have fit in the car. And it was a place for Dean to keep things that meant something, that he couldn't have stood getting rid of, but that didn't have a place in the car. That old box of photos from the house in Kansas had ended up here. Dad's things, his clothes, his weapons. The old leather jacket that Dean couldn't bear to wear any more, but that he could never quite put off either. Bobby had seen it all once and called him a magpie, gathering all the bright shiny bits to hoard in his nest, but kettle was talking to the pot there. Bobby had surrounded his whole house with a junkyard. Dean had a storage unit, Bobby had a whole house and several outbuildings.

It took a few minutes to find the right key on his ring for the pad lock and throw open the garage style door, but less than a minute to go to the right bag, the red backpack, where he'd stored the clothes that Sam had said he hadn't wanted. He dug through the bag, pulled out the hoodie in question. It smelled kind of musty, from being in storage, but not too bad. Behind him, the car door opened and Sam kind of staggered out, awake despite being still obviously doped up on the cold medicine. 

"You gob any tissues? My nobe is all stuffy," Sam said, then he made this horrible horking noise, obviously trying to clear it without benefit of a kleenex. 

Dean dug into another bag in the pile of old backpacks and duffles. He pulled out several bandanas, accumulated god knows how. He never remembered buying any, but they just seemed to gather in his stuff. "Here, just use these," he said, holding out the bandanas. 

Sam took them, blew his nose without comment, then he looked at all the stuff in the lockup. "You're like a hoarder or thomething."

The hoarders show on cable was something Dean had caught Sam watching with a sickened fascination. It was like a car wreck you could't take your eyes off, he'd claimed. Dean could kind of see the comparison. The five by five unit was pretty much packed to the roof. Dean kept it organized, best he could. Anything really sensitive to the damp, like books, was kept well off the floor. There were shelves and things put on the shelves, but there was also the big pile of bags on the floor that he had to move out if he wanted to get to anything on those shelves. 

Dean felt instantly defensive, "Shut up! Jerk!" 

"Bitch!"

"Hey, that's my line," Dean said, but he was kind of a little happier inside than he'd been in a while. It'd been years since they'd made that particular exchange, gone long past being name calling kids. This cold was causing Sammy to regress though and Dean didn't mind that at all for some reason. Dean said, "If I weren't a hoarder, you wouldn't have your hoodie. You wanted to throw it out in 2008, when we were in Andover."

Then he flourished the limp, worn hooded sweatshirt. There were more issues with it than Dean had remembered, though. The elbows were completely blown out. Sam's elbows, Dean knew from having come into contact with them many times over the years, were razor sharp, or at least they seemed that way. Sam grabbed the thing. He must have noticed the same thing, because he was pulling the sleeve over his arm and then sticking his whole hand through the hole. "Damnb! Ibs ruined." he said, and he really seemed on the verge of tears, which would get messy, given just how stuffed up the man's nose was already.

"Hey, we can fix that," Dean said. "You get back in the car, take some more NyQuil and I'll be out in a minute. I'm just going to put things back in order here and lock up."

Sam retreated to the Oldsmobile with his small pile of bandanas and the hoodie clutched in his hands. Dean started digging through a black backpack that contained some of his favorite clothes from when he was younger, things he'd grown out of. There wasn't much, because most of it had been passed down to Sam, at least until Sam had reached, then surpassed Dean's height. Dean found what he was looking for, a thick, gray sweatshirt, almost exactly the same shade and weight of the fleur de lis hoodie fabric. It wasn't the first time Dean had patched up a garment. He knew that if he was going to do it, he'd need a donor piece of cloth to provide the patches. This sweatshirt hadn't actually been Dean's. It belonged to Shawn Robards, the first guy Dean had kissed, first guy he'd had sex with too, if you counted a quick fumble behind the football field bleachers as sex. Mostly, he wasn't Dean's usual type, but Shawn had the most gorgeous chocolate brown skin and blindingly white teeth to go with his even more gorgeous smile. Dean had never actually worn the sweatshirt, because it was huge. Shawn was a big guy, like taller than Sam and way bigger around. He'd been a defensive lineman on the varsity football team. Dean had been curious once about Shawn, looked him up online. Shawn had gone on to play big ten college ball, but then his career had ended before it started with a blown out knee. Dean smiled at the memories as he grabbed the shirt, and then one of those hotel room sewing kits he'd picked up once. 

In the car, Sam was blowing nose once again. He scrubbed at his face with one of the bandanas, and if his eyes were red, well, he did have a cold. 

"We goob?" Sam asked. Obviously, he was already getting to that point of the cold where it didn't really do that much good to blow your nose, that it was the swollen sinuses that were the problem, not the snot. 

"Yeah, we're good," Dean said, stowing the sweatshirt and sewing kit on the backseat. "Only a four hours maybe to the cabin. I'll fix the sweatshirt when we get there. You grab your next dose of NyQuil yet?"

Sam held up the nearly empty bottle in answer. Well, he was huge, but still, it was amazing he wasn't passed out, as much as he'd had. Dean planned to stop again, find another bottle of the stuff. Maybe he'd pick up a can of soup too. The cabin might have one, but then again, it might not. 

As they drove into the still pitch dark morning, Dean asked, "Why this hoodie? You had about four or five you got rid of that time."

"Firs' thing I bought on my own. Ab Thanford. First new thing, from a real thore."

"I get that," Dean said. Dean had never seen the appeal of paying full retail for clothes. He'd been happy to pick his stuff up here and there, wearing other people's clothes was fine by him. For years, his coat of choice had belonged to his father first. But Sam, it was probably part of experience of normal life that he craved to go to the mall and buy something from Abercrombie and Fitch or the Gap. 

Sam sighed and then shifted over on the seat, to be closer to Dean. He leaned against Dean, actually snuggled into Dean's side. Dean freed up his right hand and laid it on Sam's forehead first, to check his fever. Sam didn't protest this time, though it wasn't much worse than it'd been earlier. Then he laid his right arm over Sam's shoulder again. It wasn't going to be terribly comfortable, driving with Gigantor laying up against him like this, but Dean couldn't say no.

"Aches," Sam said, misery clear in his voice.

"I know, baby boy, I know. You go to sleep. You'll probably feel better in the morning," Dean said. 

Sam was still fast asleep when Dean pulled into the WalMart closest to Rufus' cabin. It was still a good hour away. He said Sam's name first, to try and wake him. When that didn't succeed, he shook Sam on the shoulder pretty hard and still didn't rouse him. Sam was down for the count, so Dean left him there in the car, mouth open, head lolled back, a little bit of drool running down the corner of his mouth, and snoring softly. He didn't snore usually, Dean wouldn't have put up with that shit, but it must have just been the congestion. Inside Walmart, Dean gathered his supplies quickly, more cold medicine, both the green NyQuil and the orange day version, cans of chicken and stars soup, orange juice and other stuff that seemed needful. 

From the men's clothing section, Dean grabbed a thick sweatshirt fleece hoodie in black that he knew for sure would accommodate Sam's massive shoulders. The fleur de lis hoodie was fine in theory, but Dean's pretty sure that part of the reason it got left behind is that Sam outgrew it. Not so much the height, because Sam had picked up most of his height before he'd left for Stanford, but Sam hadn't picked up his massive shoulders until a few years back and they'd seemed to grow even more during the year Sam had been without a soul. Once the initial nostalgia of having the old hoodie back had worn off, he'd be irritated by how much it would pull across the shoulders, probably expose his wrists and belly when he reached for things too.

Still fast asleep when Dean returned to the car, Sam mumbled something unintelligible and twitched in his sleep. It might have been a nightmare, but Dean couldn't tell for sure and Sam didn't actually wake up. "You sleep tight, doll," Dean told him. "I'll have you back at the cabin before you know it."

Finally driving up to the log cabin hidden away in the pines, Dean called Bobby right after he put the car in park and climbed out to stretch his legs. He reached the actual man on the first try and not his voicemail, for the first time in forever.

"You need help with that vamp nest?" Dean asked Bobby. "I can come. We made it back to the cabin."

"Done and dusted," Bobby said. "No thanks to you two idjits. I still can't believe you let him get a love potion whammy put on him. That you got outsmarted by a girl. A fan girl."

Dean was about to protest that there hadn't been anything he could do, that Sam had insisted on going off on his hippie desert camping trip on his own. That it was demons and that they'd stopped the demons. He didn't though. Better to just let Bobby rant. Finally Dean said, "Well, Sam's picked up this cold. He's kind of miserable. You coming back soon?"

"I was kind of thinking of finding another hunt, actually. Can't stand to have you two under my feet all day. I'll be back when your brother is done spreading his plague germs all over the place. How'd Garth work out?"

"Surprisingly, he didn't suck," Dean admitted. Garth actually grew on you after a while. He was awkward as hell, but he was brave, kind without being a wuss and he knew his stuff. That counted for a lot in Dean's book. 

"Glad to hear it. I'm going to hit the trail. See you in about a week."

Dean turned back to the car. Sam was stirring in the front seat. Dean opened the passenger side door for him and called out, "Wakey, wakey, Princess. We're here."

Sam unfolded himself out of the car. He was just so big that not even seventies Detroit steel was really big enough for him to be comfortable and this Oldsmobile was no exception. Sam glared at him peevishly as he moved and stretched, trying to work the stiffness out of his body. 

"I still feel like shit," Sam said. At least his speech was a little more clear. Maybe he was a little less congested?

"I bet you do, sweetie," Dean said. He wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulder and steered him towards the front door. The day was going to be clear, blue skies just dawning, but it was cold, cold enough their breath was visible. "Let's just get you into bed, Baby Boy."

Sam meekly let himself be taken inside and stripped down to his underwear and t-shirt, then put into bed. After Sam buried his face into the pillow and burrowed under the blankets, Dean went back to the car to grab their gear and the bags from Walmart. Dean put dry goods in the cupboards, the medicines in open sight. Then he went to work checking the wards and hex bags of the cabin, making sure they were still protected. Everything stowed and all in order, Dean set about making the hoodie right. 

First he evaluated, making sure he caught sight of all the holes. There were the holes in each elbow, plus a smaller one on the lower back. The ribbing around the sleeves was shot, raveled and worn, but there was nothing Dean could do about that. Thankfully, with the little bit of airing it had gotten it didn't smell nearly so musty, because they didn't have a washer and dryer at the cabin.

Then Dean gathered his tools and supplies: a sharp pair of scissors, sewing needles, the spool of gray thread he'd found at Walmart and Shawn Robards sweatshirt. He carefully cut the patches from the donor sweatshirt. It actually wasn't the first time it'd served that purpose, but it was a big sweatshirt and it could spare a lot of patches before it'd be reduced to nothing. Patches set aside, Dean threaded his needle. He doubled the thread, pulled it through his fingers a few times to pull out any lingering twist in the thread that would make knots and tangles. He wrapped the thread around the needle a few times then pulled the wraps down to the end of the thread to form the knot, gave it a good tug to be sure it was secure and he got to work. He sewed the hoodie as carefully as if it was his brother's flesh he was sewing up and not just his jacket. They'd each stitched the other up more times than he could count. Their lives were dangerous and the bills would have been astronomical if they'd gone to the emergency room every time they'd gotten some gash or minor bullet wound. Again and again, he pulled the thread and needle smoothly through the fabric, tacking old to new, good to worn, closing the holes. He couldn't make it good as new, but he could make it more or less whole and that would have to do. 

He wished he could do better for Sam. He wished he could turn back time to when this hoodie was new, when Sam was a young man, just barely not a boy, at Stanford. He sometimes wished he'd never gone to California to find him when Dad had gone missing, that he'd left Sam alone. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference and Sam would have gotten drawn back into Heaven and Hell's battles anyway, but then it wouldn't have been Dean's fault. 

It'd been a while since he'd had a drink and he could feel himself start to sober up, in a miserable, sick, shakey kind of way, so he put the hoodie down and grabbed a bottle of Bobby's hunter's helper and a water tumbler. He poured himself a finger or two and took a sip, grimacing only slightly at the burn. Bobby's brand of choice was cheap and rubbing alcohol would have gone down more smoothly. Yeah, it was a little early to be drinking, but he hadn't been to bed yet, and it was happy hour somewhere in the world. Then he got back to his mending. It was the only thing he could do, what he'd always tried to do, really, making the world just a little bit better by stitching it together as best as he could. 

A few doubles of whiskey later, just as Dean was putting the last couple of stitches into place, Sam stirred again, rolling onto his back and opening his eyes. He coughed, at first weakly, but then it went deeper until they became the kind of coughs that shake your whole body. Without comment, Dean looked at the assortment of cold medicine he'd picked up and tossed Sam the multi symptom one with a cough suppressant. As Sam read labels and dosed himself, measuring this time, Dean finished up with the hoodie, clipping the last thread.

He held the hoodie up for inspection. The patches weren't invisible, but they were neat, the edges cleaned up. He'd used a buttonhole stitch around the edges to keep them from unravelling more and the patch fabric matched the original pretty well. 

"Here ya go, Sweetheart," Dean said, tossing the hoodie onto Sam. "Good as new."

Sam pulled it on, zipping it all the way to his chin. As Dean had predicted, it pulled across the shoulders and Sam's wrists hung out of the stretched out cuffs even when he wasn't reaching for something. He smiled though and it lit up his whole face. He all but hugged himself. First time in a while that Dean had seen Sam smile that big, that genuinely. 

"Thanks, Dean. I think this makes you pretty much the best brother ever," Sam said. "Hey, have you been to sleep yet?"

"Not yet," Dean admitted. "I'll go to bed soon enough. You want some soup yet?"

He planned to settle himself on the sofa in front of the TV. It was about time for his favorite Spanish soap and maybe it would soothe him enough that he could slip into a few hours of sleep. They weren't on the road now, so maybe he'd repeat his couple of fingers of whiskey several times and that'd be enough to send him to unconsciousness. Until then though, he'd do what he'd always done, take care of Sammy. 

"No, not yet. No appetite. Dean, you've been up over twenty four hours. Driving through most of that."

"Twenty-nine," Dean said.

Sam threw the covers back in a clear invitation. It'd been over two years since Sam had asked him to come to bed, since before he'd fallen into the cage. It'd probably never occurred to Sam when he didn't have his soul and afterwards, Sam just couldn't deal with it. What they were to each other, beyond brothers, it was never easy and they never talked about it. It happened or it didn't. Right now, it wasn't happening and Dean was okay with that, because he had to be.

"It's okay. I'll just set up on the sofa. That bed's too small for the both of us. You need to get your rest, Baby Boy."

"I want you here, Dean," Sam said. He paused to cough again, still that deep, chesty cough, not helped yet by the cough medicine. When he'd stopped and paused a little while to catch his breath, he added, "My head hurts and my whole body hurts. I can hardly breathe through my nose. I just want you to cuddle me, like you used to when we were younger. Don't make me beg."

Younger, like when they were kids? Or younger, like five years ago younger? Dean supposed it didn't really matter, because as crapular as Sam was probably feeling, he could probably match that and there was one thing that always made Dean feel better- taking care of Sammy. And he wanted this so bad, wanted to be back in Sam's arms, held by him, like in the days when Sam had worn those damn hoodies all the time. 

"Dean, I need you," Sam added, and that, more than anything else convinced Dean. 

"Yeah, okay," he said. He ditched his boots, dumped the junk in his pocket on a nearby table. He stashed his forty-five under the extra pillow in Sam's bed, double checking the safety first, then he climbed in. Sam rolled onto his side and Dean spooned up behind him, taking the big spoon position, just like he always did. He draped a free arm around Sam's waist, worried a little about how warm the back of Sam's neck felt on his face and he gave a big sigh. The sheer physical presence of his brother felt better than he'd remembered. Sam pressed back on Dean, snuggling closer yet. 

"You sure you don't want tylenol or something, Sammy?" Dean asked. "You still feel awful warm."

"It's in that medicine you gave me. Just hasn't kicked in yet," Sam said as he grabbed Dean's hand in his, wrapping their fingers tightly together. 

"'Kay," Dean said. "Let me know if you need anything else, Baby Boy."

The hunter's helper and the sheer exhaustion were finally catching up with Dean. He could feel himself drifting, the weight of his eyelids too much to resist. He slept, a blessedly dreamless sleep for once, for hours longer than he usually did. It was already creeping on to twilight when he opened his eyes just long enough to crawl out of bed and hit the can, stopping for another quick slug of whiskey on the way back to bed. 

When he woke for good, it was full dark and Sam was holding him in the spoon. They'd flipped positions. For the first time that Dean could remember, he was the little spoon, with Sam's arms wrapped around him. Sam was still coughing, that was what woke Dean in the first place, but from what Dean could tell, Sam wasn't feverish, or at least, not nearly so hot as he'd been. 

"Hey, sweetheart, you feeling better?" Dean asked. 

"Probably just the medicine, but yeah, much," Sam said. He tugged Dean close again, tight up against his chest. "You know, I miss this. I miss you. Why did we ever stop?"

"When you came back, you weren't really you," Dean said, thinking of how awful those days had been, when Sam had lacked that thing that made him really Sam. His brother without a soul had been like a monster wearing Sam's face. As broken as he'd come back, it was a million times better to have him this way than without his soul.

Sam pressed a kiss to the back of Dean's neck and it was like the bottom of Dean's stomach dropped out and everything else inside of him clenched tight and fell into that empty place. Then Sam said, "I'm really me now. And I miss you and I want you back."

"I don't think it's such a good idea for us to start up with that again," Dean said. "This thing we have between us, it's all tangled up and messed up. I'm not any good for you, Sammy. Not that way."

"No, Dean. You're what I need. You're the only reason I'm sane right now. You showed me how to figure out what's real, what's not. You did that," Sam said. "Waking up and finding out I'd gotten married to Becky, it got me thinking about what I really want and it's not to be married to anyone. I remember how it felt, that crazy in love feeling, and it was exciting and like being high as a kite. But it felt fake and flat when I compare it to how I feel about you."

"Just 'cause somethings complicated and deep, doesn't meant its good. I'm a hot mess. I sleep maybe three, four hours a night, I can't not drink and I've been running on the edge of exhaustion for so long, I don't know what it is to be not tired. I can't be good for you."

"And I've got a denver scramble for brains. I don't care what you say. I know you're good for me. I know we're stronger together and I know I love you in every possible way that matters." 

"Are we having a chick flick moment here?" Dean teased, even though what Sam said was exactly what he'd been yearning to hear for so very long. "Because if this when you tell me that I complete you or make you want to be a better man, I am so kicking you out of this bed, cold or not."

What Dean didn't say was that Sam had always made him want to be a better man than he was. That he was a better man when Sam was around.

Dean turned around to see Sam crack a grin and say, "Maybe I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”

"You are such a girl, Princess," Dean said, and he was gladder than he could say that Sam was giving him this, the opportunity to tease and joke, backing off from the harder things they'd eventually have to say to each other. They got there, eventually, they always did, but the emotional stuff, it took a while as they took one step forward, one step back. "How about another slug of NyQuil, then you try and get some more sleep?"

"Nah, how about some chicken soup and a kiss?"

"I'll get the soup on," Dean said, getting himself out of Sam's arms. 

"No kiss first?"

"Maybe when you're spreading less germs."

"I've been sneezing and coughing on you for over a day now. If you're going to catch it, you will, so give me a damn kiss or tell me the real reason you don't want to."

"Okay," Dean agreed, and it was easier than he'd thought it'd be to say yes to the kiss and to everything it implied for later. He leaned close and pressed his lips to Sam's. The other man's lips were a little chapped and rough, but the touch of them was soft, almost hesitant at first. Dean could feel himself open to that touch as Sam's hands moved up to caress his face, one hand on each cheek. It was a promise for later, that kiss, probably for after this cold was over for Sam. It said, thank you, and it said, I am waiting for you. It said, I trust you with everything that I am. Dean opened his mouth slightly but Sam didn't plunder it, but instead, just lightly nibbled and licked Dean's lips. It was a kiss that said a lot of things, but what Dean mostly heard was that Sam was better for him being there, that he'd mended Sam tonight, just as much as his hoodie, and that, in turn, made Dean feel a little more whole, as little less like he was falling apart. 

"I love you," Dean said, as he broke away from the kiss, got out of bed and headed across the room to the kitchen area. Rufus' cabin wasn't big and was mostly just one main room on this floor. 

"I know," said Sam.

"You know that makes you Princess Leia, right?" 

"Know, don't care. Not right now."

Maybe it looked like he was the one taking care of Sam tonight, feeding him NyQuil, making soup, sewing up the hoodie, but really, Sam was fixing him up just as much. He mends me, Dean thought, as he grabbed the can opener. Maybe not all the way to shiny new but possibly just enough.


End file.
